Neat little scene

[Evertking]

BWCUBSSCOUT by James Cason, on Flickr

[Manfred M]

It would have been an even better scene if the four children in the left front corner were either not in the scene or were in sharp focus. As it is, they are a significant distracting element in the image.

The general rule of thumb is that the subject and anything in front of the subject needs to be reasonably sharp and in focus, and the material behind the subject can be soft. The human visual system accepts this as being okay. The other way around, as in this shot, looks "wrong" to most of us.

The rest of the image has potential and you've handled the strongly backlit parts quite well as the other children look good in spite of the lighting. That big portable light of yours as a fill light would have been challenging given the two groups and where they are positioned.

[William W]

I concur with the general comments Manfred has made.

This (below) is the "Neat little scene" that I see:



A few steps to camera right and a slightly longer Focal Length - OR - get a bit closer.

Also two other points - a few steps to the right and a bit tighter

1. > you'll get rid of that basketball pole in the child's head.

2. > you'll get rid of the large area of (bright) sky in the background.

The second point is usually really quite important when shooting Available Light, into the Light, for many reasons, not limited to:

1. a big white blob in the final image attracts a lot of unwanted attention
2. a big area of bright light in the viewfinder when making the image, usually contributes to Veiling Flare, which you have a bit, and which you don't want, especially in B&W, because Veiling Flare makes the mid-tone greys wish-washy.

I am not sure if Manfred intended to suggest using Flash as Fill, but I wouldn't for this shot: way too cumbersome: my head aches even thinking about it.

WW

[Manfred M]

I am not sure if Manfred intended to suggest using Flash as Fill, but I wouldn't for this shot: way too cumbersome: my head aches even thinking about it.

The reason for my comment is that a lot of the images that James has posted previously used location lighting. The reason for using it is to avoid the flat light we get from back lighting, as we see here. It would definitely not be a practical solution in this shooting situation.

I did not get into some of the other issues with this image because I was simply dealing with the more obvious one. The hot spot at the upper right hand corner definitely draws too much of our attention and the pole for the basketball net is an issue, as is the veiling flare. The "hot" ground (not sure if is grass) behind the subjects could use some calming too.

We don't know is behind James, but from a shooting position standpoint, I would have looked for something better; either back lighting or side lighting. The shadows we see are quite long, so I expect that the lighting was definitely fairly soft and diffuse in other shooting positions.

[William W]

^
Hiya Manfred,

Thanks for explaining the mention of the Flash as Fill. I expected that you were not suggesting it for this particular shot, and I also thought it best if you would expand on the comment, not necessarily for me. Appreciate you so doing.

***

I am not overly concerned about the angle of the lighting; and whilst I agree with Manfred that the shot would be improved if we attained a different camera position for the purpose of getting a different lighting angle, I do think more can be made of this lighting angle, provided that (as a main point) the large areas of bright light are removed from the lens's Field of View.

Other tit bits would be:
> remove any filters,
> use a small aperture,
> use an effective lens hood (read that as 'if your using a zoom lens then the lens hood does very little in this shooting scenario',
> meter the scene for correct skin tones on the shadow side of the face (read that as 'what blow out blows out' - hence that's why we get all of the bright light areas out of the FoV of the Lens.

***

What I like most about this "neat little scene" is James is actually out there "in the street" looking for shots and making photos that have a story and capturing characters doing their day to day stuff in an interesting way.

The whole, is probably summed up by Robert Capa's advice - ". . . you aren't close enough".

WW

[Manfred M]

Thanks for explaining the mention of the Flash as Fill. I expected that you were not suggesting it for this particular shot, and I also thought it best if you would expand on the comment, not necessarily for me. Appreciate you so doing.

No problem Bill

There are times when I shoot flash outdoors more than I use it indoors. The reason is to overcome lighting that is not working for me and ambient back light or side light is definitely where I turn to flash outdoors. I ran into a situation like that a couple of weeks ago during a late afternoon to evening shoot at the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario.

Late in the day, the light was a bit like what James was facing; the setting sun was in front and to the side and the light hitting the model was not really all that attractive.





I had anticipate this and had brought along a 4m / 13ft light stand with flash and softbox. I used it in this shot and got much nicer lighting on the model.





As long as we have enough power and can position the light appropriately, location flash is a powerful tool to get shots that are not possible using the ambient light. I will often use fill flash in situations where I want better light hitting my subject. James has posted quite a few shots here at CiC using this type of light setup, which is why I mentioned it.

It would not be a practical solution here simply because this technique is not particularly well suited when shooting subjects that are moving around. Even camera mounted direct flash can only be pointed at one of the groups.